29.11.11

I think the end of November is my least favorite time of year, for no other reason than the fact that it means Christmas and New Years are right around the corner and I now go from having very little to do, to having way too much to do! Before we get to Christmas excitement, let's enjoy a recap of November!

This is the first actual birthday cake that I've made either of my kids. I tend to do cupcakes because I like having individual servings ready to go, to be honest I have no idea why I decided to do a cake this year, but it was dang good. I found a recipe for chocolate icing in our ward recipe book and it was amazing, whipped up so fast and was the perfect amount for this cake. Oh and please forgive my squiggly letters, the hole in my icing thing was on a weird angle for some reason.

So for decorations we reused what I had from Kalea's birthday, and that was a fantastic idea if I don't say so myself. I find myself loving these paper chains more and more every time I use them. they are whimsical and fun, and bonus, big bang for your buck since I bought my cardstock on sale in the summer I think it cost me something like $2, and that went a long ways. Also, the Happy 2nd Birthday banner was actually our Happy 1st Birthday banner, I just made the disc with the number 2 and put it on top of the "1st" disc, so no cost there.

This is Brynlee dancing, she takes it quite seriously and is a pro at Jazz Hands already, even though we've never taught her! She was putting on quite the show that night, couldn't have had anything to do with the amount of sugar in her system....

She was SO excited to see a fishy on her birthday cake. It was awesome to see that this year, she was actually excited and knew what was going on, we're still working on teaching her how to blow out an actual candle, though, so she was kind of confused when we blew it out for her.

Building a playdough tower on the kitchen table, this is usually a no-no, but I caved since it kept her quiet for so long. Oh and it's a no-no, not because I'm a lame mom, but because certain children have fallen off the table performing this task before...

This is Kalea being super cute but not wanting me to take pictures of her... Above, she is wearing 2 layers of summertime clothing, her romper and Brynlee's sundress. Below, she got into my makeup and decided to make her face look "bootiful" except it just looked really dirty.

And to end things on a high note, this is the day last week that Brynlee fell asleep at 4:30 eating her early dinner. I figured they'd need to go to bed by 7 since they had woken up at 5a.m. that day, apparently someone needed to be in bed much sooner. You can't tell but her hand was actually still opening and closing, very slowly, as she slept, as if she were still picking up noodles. It was slightly creepy.

15.11.11

Brynlee turned TWO on the 4th. With Halloween festivities and then a birthday, we get to enjoy two pretty chaotic weeks of fun and celebration. This year I opted out of decorating for Halloween since my time was consumed with making costumes, I don't think the kids were too disappointed about that, in fact I am sure they didn't even notice. And, when they did notice other peoples' decorations, they were usually scared of them, so I don't feel a loss there at all this year. They did notice me singing "Happy Birthday" when I went in to get Brynlee out of bed on her special day, and both children screamed "STOP! NO SINGING" at me, that was pretty great. When we finally made it downstairs, they most definitely noticed all the fun decorations I put up for Brynlee's birthday, it was so cute, all morning she said "Wow! Look Mommy!" as she pointed to everything. It's nice to know that my late night with the "decorating fairies" was worth it, she literally pointed out every last detail, I think I earned huge awesome mommy points from her. Kalea was confused and exclaimed, "Mommy look, it's Christmas! Oh thank you so much!" I then had to explain that it was actually Brynlee's birthday, to which Kalea responded, "It's my birthday? Happy Birthdaaaaaaaaaaaay!" So all day long there were happy choruses of "For me? For my birthday?!" and "Happy Birthday!" and "No, it's not Brynlee's birthday, it's my birthday!" We kept things simple for the party this year and just invited the grandparents over to celebrate with us, I think that's okay when you're turning two. And since Brynlee shares her birthday with a cousin and an uncle, celebrating the day of with just our family was a bit easier to coordinate.

Brynlee is a pretty fun kid. She is extremely expressive both vocally and physically. When she really likes something, we know because she makes really intense faces and squeals with delight. When she doesn't like something we know because she will stomp her feet repeatedly and scream/shout, she also hits. But she is very quick to say sorry in a surprisingly meaningful way. I love the intonation in her voice when she says "I'm sorry Mom-E" the "e" sound, as one can imagine is quite high-pitched and super cute. She is definitely Mommy's girl and likes to be my shadow most of the day. She is pretty shy with people she doesn't know, but will follow Kalea anywhere. Brynlee also loves to run and squeal at the same time. On Sunday I took her out into the hall and she wouldn't stop, I couldn't get back into our church meetings because every time I went to pick her up she'd find a way to elude my grasp and start off running and squealing again. She is also very good at making huge messes all by herself, but she likes to help me clean them up, so I can't really complain about that. She likes to help put laundry away and has started helping me make Kalea's bed. Yeah, don't ask me how that happened. Brynlee is kind of a neat freak sometimes and will get super frustrated if she can't lay out a blanket for her dolls just perfectly, or wrap them up in just the right way. I guess I have to admit that some of her "Type A personality" comes from me because she makes the same crazy person frustration noises that I do. At least I know how to help her deal with it though, that's a blessing I never knew would come from being such a perfectionist about certain things. Brynlee notices everything and watches us all very closely. I think because she is so sensitive, she picks up on a lot of things that we miss sometimes. She also is great at playing up an emotion, she has the biggest most awesome pouty face and tries really hard to use that to get her way. Between her and Kalea I don't know how Steve is ever going to say "no" to those girls. Brynlee loves to dance, and will stop in her tracks to bust out some dance moves for a few minutes and then go back to whatever she was doing. It's pretty funny to watch. She loves making towers with our containers of playdough- no word of a lie, they hardly ever actually play with the dough, it's all about who can make the tallest tower in this house. It's fine with me, way less mess to clean up! She loves animals, specifically fish. She loves to make fish faces and fish sounds and basically, she's just all about fish. Her b-day cake this year had a big fish on it, just for that reason. She loved it! We have a tropical places calendar in the kitchen and she loves to point out all the different fish everyday. She still goes upstairs to see the fish at my parents' house, even though the fish hasn't been there for months because he finally "expired". Brynlee is also my child who gets caught sneaking snacks out of the kitchen most often. But, the nice thing is that she always gets enough for her and for Kalea, so at least she's sharing her goods with her sister.
We are so happy that Brynlee came to our family, and while she's by no means a "perfect child" we feel pretty spoiled to have her in our home. Happy 2nd Birthday Brynlee!

14.11.11

K, so I have one complaint lately and I have to vent it because it's driving me insane. A few times in the last little while people have come to me with the report that a number someone or another has opted out of having me do this or that because "Allison has a lot on her plate" or "Allison has enough on her plate".... My question is, how does anyone know how much or how little I have on my plate right now? I haven't talked to anybody about anything even remotely plate filling lately. Are people under the strange assumption that because I have a seemingly important calling at church that it takes up huge portions of my life? Newsflash, it takes up a few hours every couple of weeks, and if I have to teach, a week of prep before the lesson. Other than that I have two wild children and a husband who is a HUGE help to me when he's not busy with work. Plate full? Not even close. Also, so what if I have a lot or a little going on, I'm not the kind of person that says "yes" to everything, so if I were to have a lot on my plate I would just say so and try to help out where needed when I don't have as much going on. But in all honestly, I have NOTHING going on right now! Gah! Drive me mental. On the point of children and on behalf of a majority of stay at home moms that I know, sometimes being distracted by something that doesn't revolve around the little ones, is great for my sanity. And in conclusion, do I come across as the kind of person that can't handle a lot on her plate? If so, kill me now, I do NOT want to be that person. That person is so annoying to me. This whole thing is so annoying to me. Rant concluded, if anybody needs anything let me know :)